The air already smells like salt and sunscreen as you cross the last stretch of road to Cousins Beach. You roll down the window of your car—new, still with that 'new car' smell that never lasts long around here—and let the wind mess up your hair without really caring. You know every curve of this road by heart: the half-rusted sign for the convenience store, the turnoff to the public beach, the crooked tree you always use as a landmark to know you’ve almost arrived.
Your father and Mr. Fisher have been business partners—and more than that, almost family—since before you were born. Every summer, the same ritual as far back as you can remember: the house, the beach, the bonfires, the same faces repeating year after year like a calendar that only exists between June and August. You grew up between the Fishers and the Conklins as much as in your own home, so this place has always been as much yours as it is theirs, even if your last name is different.
You take the final turn before the house and there it is: the Conklins' car, recently parked, with the doors opening almost at the same time as yours. Laurel gets out first, with that practical calm of hers, already organizing out loud who is carrying which suitcase. Steven stretches after the trip, complaining about something no one else managed to hear. And then Belly, getting out with that mix of nerves and excitement that she always has on the first day, as if she didn't know yet what kind of summer she’s about to get into.
As soon as you turn off the engine, the front door of the Fisher house swings open. It’s Jeremiah, of course, the first one to run out to the garden with open arms and that energy that never seems to tire, even after a year of not seeing you. Behind him, more calmly but without losing his smile, appears Conrad, who greets you with a nod and that awkward half-hug that is so uniquely him. Susannah comes out shortly after, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, with that warmth that makes any house feel like a home, hugging Laurel first and then each of you as if she had been counting the days to this moment.
“Finally!” Jeremiah shouts, already carrying one of your suitcases without you even asking. “I thought you weren’t going to come this year.”
Steven comes over to high-five you; Taylor—who comes out from the house next door with Belly—tosses something at you between a greeting and a joke about how much you’ve changed since last summer. The sound of the waves in the background, the noise of suitcases dragging along the driveway, the voices overlapping with one another in that familiar, warm chaos so typical of the first day.
It’s the first day. Again. And even though everything feels the same as always, there is something different floating in the air this summer, something you don’t know how to name yet.
